You all may want to take out your copies of the Reuters's Manual of Style Over Substance and mark this in the margin at § 4.1.3 terrorists, 'insurgents,' or 'rebels'?

It appears that now 'execution' is to be softened or, in post-modernist fashion, treated ironically by inverted commas (note my adherence in this very sentence—I sure as heck fire don't want to offend Michael Moore's Minutemen):

Rebels 'Execute' 49 Iraqi Troops, Kill U.S. Diplomat

By Faris al-Mahdawi

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Rebels killed 49 unarmed army recruits in one of the bloodiest attacks on Iraq's nascent security forces and, in a separate attack Sunday, killed a U.S. diplomat in a mortar strike near Baghdad airport.

The bodies of 37 recruits shot dead on a road northeast of Baghdad were found Saturday and 12 were discovered Sunday.

"They were all executed, we found them executed," Interior Ministry spokesman Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.

The attack was another blow to the efforts of the interim government to rebuild Iraqi security forces to tackle a raging insurgency that U.S.-led forces have failed to quell.

. . . . .

"It appears that they were ambushed by a large, well-organized force with good intelligence," the source said.

Insurgents have frequently targeted Iraqis seen as cooperating with the U.S. military or the interim government.

You can't miss the political bias: well-organized rebels (not terrorists), using great intelligence, 'executed' (if you want to call it that—I certainly don't) a group of traitors who, like children (nascent), couldn't defend themselves (being ill-prepared by the bumbling Americans), further damaging the cause of the U.S. and its puppet regime.

Hooray!